Many types of small items or parts, such as small electrical terminals, must be produced as loose-piece parts rather than in strip form because of the manner in which each part must be formed. For example, electrical terminals which are manufactured by automatic screw machine operations can only be produced as loose pieces or individual pieces. When such terminals are to be crimped onto wires, it is desirable to package the parts in some way so that they can be fed automatically to a crimping machine. One system presently used is to mount the individual terminals in a continuous belt of plastic or the like enclosed in a cassette-type magazine so that the parts can be individually removed from the magazine exit station as the belt is fed, and both the magazine and belt are reusable. The magazine is removable from the crimping machine after enough parts have been dispensed and is placed back on the machine when needed again, which permits another magazine with different sized parts to be fed into the machine as desired. Such a crimping machine and magazine are sold by Crimp-Tec, Inc. of Wilmington, Calif. under the trade designation CTI-300 and CTI- 500 respectively, and a loading apparatus for the magazine is sold under the trade designation CTI-600. The belt is endless and is comprised of a plurality of separately molded cells each connected by hinges and hinge pins to the adjacent cells, and the belt is packed into a storage area with the cell hinges permitting a random orientation of the belt therewithin. The housing is metal and the cover is a thick plastic member secured to it primarily by screw fasteners, to withstand handling and permit visual inspection of the belt within. A feed wheel is contained within the magazine and receives a spindle of the crimping machine to be rotated to pull the belt for the storage chamber; during loading the feed wheel receives a like spindle of a loading machine to be rotated thereby to move the belt in the same direction as belt cells receive terminals at a loading station located past the exit station, whereafter the belt is pushed into the storage area of the magazine.
It is desired to achieve a cassette which can be produced at a minimum cost in a much simpler manufacturing procedure, which can be more efficiently packed, and which provides for control of belt location along a belt path.